Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s crowd-pleasing horror blockbuster is up for seven Golden Globes.

Sinners ending explained: Who survives the night (and who returns in that post-credits scene)

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan's crowd-pleasing horror blockbuster is up for seven Golden Globes.

By Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at **. His work has previously appeared on *The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer*, and many other publications.

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January 11, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

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Michael B. Jordan as Stack in 'Sinners'. Credit:

Warner Bros. Pictures

- *Sinners*, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan, is a period horror film about vampires who descend on a Black juke joint.

- The film was nominated for seven Golden Globes.

- It's currently available to stream on HBO Max.

*Sinners* has had a hell of a year.

After earning rapturous reviews, a worldwide gross of nearly $370 million, and a thumbs up from Tom Cruise, Ryan Coogler's horror blockbuster was nominated for seven Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture - Drama.

The film is an absolute riot, a no-bones-about-it horror flick heightened by powerful music, confident performances, and rich, resonant themes regarding cultural assimilation.

*Sinners* centers on a pair of twins, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who in 1932 leave the criminal underworld of Chicago and return to their Mississippi hometown. After buying an old sawmill and recruiting some old pals, they go about opening their own juke joint, a boozy getaway brimming with good food and better music, the latter of which is provided by their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a young, gifted blues musician.

"It's genre-bending, it's genre-fluid, the film," Coogler previously told **. "There *are* vampires in the film, but it's really about a lot more than just that. It's one of many elements, I'll say."**

Below, we unpack the film's ending and dominant themes, as well as its compelling post-credits sequence, which includes a cameo from the legendary, Grammy-winning blues artist Buddy Guy.

Who is Remmick?

Jack O'Connell plays a vampire named Remmick in 'Sinners'.

Remmick (Jack O'Connell) is a vampire of Irish heritage. When we meet him, he's being pursued by Choctaw vampire hunters. His skin, meanwhile, is scorched and smoking in the sunlight.

Being a vampire, he can't enter someone else's home without an invitation. He gets one from Joan (Lola Kirke) and Bert (Peter Dreimanis), a married couple affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, who offer him refuge from his pursuers. It isn't long before he turns Joan and Bert into vampires, linking them to a hive mind. All who are converted, we learn, share each other's memories.

What draws the vampires to the juke joint?

Miles Caton's Sammie in 'Sinners'.

Eli Adé/Warner Bros.

Sometimes, a concert can be powerful enough to attract the wrong kind of audience. That's exactly what happens when Sammie delivers a performance that, in the words of Coogler, "feels euphoric... you feel so present that you almost feel immortal."

Reality bends as Sammie plays. Peppered throughout the revelers are visions old and new: African tribal dancers and 21st-century DJs, ballerinas and clowns, water sleeves and electric guitars. The implication is that this music transcends time and place, uniting art forms and cultures throughout history.

That sequence is the film's centerpiece, but it's also what attracts Remmick, Joan, and Bert, who arrive with instruments in hand and the desire to be invited inside. "With this here ritual, we heal our people and we be free," intones Delroy Lindo's Delta Slim, as Remmick watches from afar.

When met by Smoke, Stack, and other patrons at the door, the three white visitors insist that they're not with the Klan. "We believe in equality," Remmick says. "And music." When they encourage him to visit the "plenty of white barrelhouses" back in town, Remmick digs his heels in. He wants the music and community he senses inside the juke joint. "Can't we, for just one night, all be family?" he asks.

What does Remmick want?

Jayme Lawson and Miles Caton in 'Sinners'.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Though Remmick begins to turn anyone who leaves the juke joint — including Hailee Steinfeld's Mary, an ex-girlfriend of Stack's — into vampires, he says he'll leave if they give him Sammie.

Sammie's musical talent, he believes, is so powerful that it can help him reconnect with his Irish ancestors. "You're the one I came for," he says. "I sensed you. I wanna see my people again. I'm trapped here, but your gifts can bring 'em to me."

His faith in this transcendent power of music brings to mind the film's opening narration, which speaks of "people born with the gift of making music so true it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future."

Remmick's characterization and desires bring nuance to the themes of *Sinners*. The movie explores overt racism via the Klan leaders who target the juke joint, but it also highlights a different type of Black exploitation, specifically the adoption and dilution of their culture by white communities. This, the film posits, is its own kind of vampirism.

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But Remmick's Irish heritage (and the importance of music in Irish culture) is integral to the character's impact. In interviews, Coogler has discussed a shared sense of struggle between the Irish and African American communities, given England's colonization of the Irish. Remmick, who is hundreds of years old and has presumably witnessed (and experienced) Irish oppression, identifies with the pain and joy inherent to blues music.

"I think it’s not known how much crossover there is between African American culture and Irish culture, and how much that stuff’s loved in our community,” Coogler told Indiewire. “It was very important that our master vampire in this movie was unique... that he was old, but also that he came from a time that pre-existed these racial definitions that existed in this place that he showed up in."

Later, Remmick tells Sammie, "I want your stories, and I want your songs." And in return, he says, "you gon' have mine."

There are many ways to parse out these themes, whether it be through the lens of cultural appropriation or the loss of individuality that can accompany assimilation. But, as idealistic and well-intentioned as Remmick might present himself, the vampire will nevertheless take with force what he's not given.

Who survives the night?

Michael B. Jordan as Smoke and Miles Caton as Sammie in 'Sinners'.

Warner Bros. Pictures

It's Grace (Li Jun Li), a Chinese shopkeeper helping supply the juke joint, who invites the vampires into the space, dooming the surviving revelers. Her reasoning is frustrating, but understandable — her husband (Yao), now a vampire, is taunting her outside, and Remmick has threatened to kill her daughter back in town. She reasons that if they don't kill the vampires now, her daughter is doomed.

Stack, who was previously turned into a vampire, leads the assault on the bar alongside Remmick and Mary. In the ensuing battle, singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke's estranged wife, are bitten. Pearline turns into a vampire, but Smoke manages to drive a stake through Annie's heart, preventing her transformation. Delta Slim heroically sacrifices himself so the rest of the survivors can get away.

Sammie manages to escape, though he's pursued by Remmick. Being a preacher's son, he recites the Lord's Prayer, hoping it will deter the vampires, but they just recite it along with him.

"The men who stole my father's land forced these words upon us," Remmick sneers, framing them just another tool of imperialism. "You will taste the sweet pain of death. We will make beautiful music together."

Sammie manages to wound Remmick by smashing his guitar into the vampire's head, which hobbles him long enough for Smoke to stake him from behind. As Remmick dies, the sun rises, burning the rest of the gathered vampires. In the end, the only ones left standing are Smoke and Sammie.

What happens at the end of Sinners?

Michael B. Jordan as Smoke in 'Sinners'.

Eli Adé/Warner Bros.

In the final stretch of *Sinners*, Smoke is forced to confront the non-supernatural threat of the Ku Klux Klan. As Remmick foretold, the Klan descends on the bar in the morning, led by Hogwood (David Maldonado), the man who sold Smoke and Stack the building where they set up shop.

Having been tipped off, Smoke lies in wait with an arsenal at the ready. He picks off the racists with a rifle, a Tommy gun, and grenades, but still takes a bullet to the gut, which slowly kills him.

As Smoke fades, he glimpses a spirit world where Annie is breastfeeding their child, who died as a baby. After unloading a clip into Hogwood, he accepts death, holding the infant in his arms. "Papa's here," he says.

A bloodied Sammie, meanwhile, returns home, interrupting his father's Sunday service with the smashed neck of his guitar clutched in his hand. His father, who believes Sammie's music to be sinful, orders him to drop the guitar, but Sammie can't do it.

He drives off, the guitar still clutched to his chest.**

Is there a Sinners post-credits scene?

Buddy Guy as Sammie in 'Sinners'.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Yes, though it's less a sequel set-up than a punctuation mark.

The action jumps forward decades, with an elderly Sammie relaxing at a bar after a set. Here, he's played by real-life blues legend George "Buddy" Guy, who Coogler cast as an ode to his late uncle, a huge fan of Guy's music. "He's the only artist that my uncle would consistently get dressed for and go see a lot," the director told EW.**

Sammie still wears the scars on his face from his encounter with Remmick, so he's understandably shocked when Stack and Mary stroll in, neither having aged a day. They have, however, their fashion to suit the times. (Mary's sartorial ode to Debi Mazar is particularly beguiling.)

Stack reveals that his brother didn't have it in him to finish him off during their climatic brawl in the bar. "I guess I was just the one person he couldn't kill," he says.

He adds that Smoke made him promise to leave Sammie alone to live out his life. "It won't be long for you, huh," he says after giving Sammie a sniff. "I could make it so you could stick around, keep touring, keep living, no pain."

But Sammie refuses. "I think i've seen enough of his place."

Hailee Steinfeld, Michael B. Jordan and Buddy Guy in 'Sinners'.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Just when it looks like things could get dark, the scene takes a turn. Stack wants to hear Sammie play "the real," showing that, despite his assimilation, he still misses Sammie's authentic style of blues. Sammie serenades Stack and Mary with "Travelin'," the same song he impressed Stack with early in the film.

"You know something?" Sammie says after he's done playing. "Maybe once a week I wake up paralyzed reliving that night. But before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life. Was it like that for you?"

"No doubt about it," Stack replies. "Last time I seen my brother. Last time I seen the sun. Just for a few hours, it was free."

And with that, Stack and Mary disappear into the night.**

Where can I watch Sinners?

*Sinners* is currently available to stream on HBO Max.

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